Sunday, June 15, 2008

I watched the movie 'The Bucket List' last night and loved it! The movie voiced out what I've always said to myself...that I do not want to wait till I'm old and gray and dying to start doing all the things that I've always wanted to do before I "kick the bucket".

About a year ago, on my birthday I was roaming around a bookstore looking for a good book to buy (my favorite way to spend birthday cash) when I came across a book titled "100 things to do before you die". I fell in love with the concept of the book but ended up not buying it. Not because I didnt think the ideas in the book weren't great things to do, but because I wanted to compile my own list of things that I want to do before I die...unbiased and unprejudiced by the ideas in the book. Maybe it was the book, maybe it was the fact that I was turning a year older, maybe the fact that life just felt like a blur, or maybe just all the coffee gushing through my veins...but I sat down in the bookstore last year on my birthday and compiled an earnest list of all the things I want to do before I die.

Is it a coincidence then that I watched this movie that revolves around the same concept last night, two days before my birthday? Maybe the universe is trying to remind me of my own bucket list...and maybe it's time to bring out the list, scratch off some of what's been done and add some of what needs to be done.

My Bucket List:

(yes, yes, I do realize a lot of it revolves around travelling...but then again, that really IS pretty much all I want to do before I die)

1. Climb a pyramid in Egypt.2. Drive a dune buggy full speed up and down a sand dune.3. Eat an authentic plate of tahjin in Morocco.4. Take a photo in front of the Taj Mahal.5. Go white water rafting on the Colorado River.6. Do a road trip through the American Southwest.7. Take my parents and sister on an all paid for surprise trip to a place they have never been to.8. Sponsor a child's education all the way from elementary school into college.9. Adopt a dog from an animal shelter.10. Learn to drive a stick shift jeep.11. Ride a motorbike through the Kyber Pass-Ladakh.12. See a volcano up close.13. Learn to canoe.14. Hike down the Grand Canyon.15. Visit an archaeological dig.16. Take a photography class.17. Eat cajun food in the french quarter of New Orleans.18. Go scuba diving.19. Eat a cuban sandwich in Miami.20. Visit Chinatown in NYC.21. Trace down my genealogy.22. Visit a monastery in Tibet.23. Explore the Sof Omar caves in Ethiopia.24. Ride on a camel (okay, okay so I already did this one but I was only five years old and cant remember what it felt like).25. Go backpacking around South America.26. Roam around the Mayan ruins....and the list will go on every year as I age, with new items added on, and some items cancelled off.

Note to self whenever you come back here to read this:Too much of our life is wasted in waiting for the right moment and right opportunity to start doing the things you love to do. But the truth is there is no right moment to do all those things other than right now. True, some of the things on this list will take years before they get cancelled off. True, there will be compromises, sacrifices, detours involved in the living of life. But with every compromise, sacrifice and detour, remind yourself of where it is that you really are headed and what really is important in life. Try not to get absorbed in the little things that take you off the road. And above all, when the opportunity presents itself to you in your now, dont wait for a better tomorrow to live that moment...grab it with both hands, and live it in your now.

Note to all those lurking about here reading this:Got a bucket list of your own? Do share. ;)

Sunday, June 8, 2008

It was a quiet hike in the early hours of the morning. Not a soul around in sight. Just me, and the quiet trickle of the cold water sloshing around my feet. Every breath I took, every pebble I upturned, every sound I made, echoed and reverberated off the tall, grand canyon walls. I stood lost in the winding tunnels carved by time. Occasional sunshine filtering in. Silence pierced by the squawk of an eagle cruising the winds way up high. It could have been a cold, lonely walk, but we had each other...my loneliness and I.